Night in the fifth cellar
by SirensLullaby24
Summary: She could not stay underground for one more day. Christine realised her captor was nothing but a man, so she only had one option, if she wanted to ever see the light of day again. Leroux-based, with a few Kay influences. Oneshot.


Her bedroom door remained desperately closed, locked from the outside. With every second that ticked on the clock across the room, her hope died, slipping into oblivion. No, he could never do that to her, not after all they'd been through. He had sworn he loved her, he adored her, yet now, she was here, locked, in a room that wasn't hers.

"You'll get used to it," he had said before shutting the door in her face.

Can you get used to prison? She screamed until her throat felt torn, punched the walls, swore she would kill herself, but every attempt to get her jailor's attention fell into the void. Raoul... he was her last hope, the only person who would notice her absence. This realisation hit her more brutally than she could ever imagine; she had no one. If today she died in that pitiful room, not a soul would care to notice. Meg didn't even have her number,Raoul was at his family's gala in New York. Two people were all that knew of her existence in the world. NO one would even call the police for her distroyed carcass.

With these thoughts, her hysteria was replaced by grief, and with all the day's exhaustion weighting her, she lay into the massive bed. She had been wearing the same clothes for more than a week and her hair was stuck on her skull, oily and lifeless. Sometime around those days, she would get her period, too. Going out was out of question, he wouldn't even let her have her phone, and she was stuck here with that psychopath. However, she refused to wear the clothes he had bought for her or stay a second naked in the house where all locks open under his touch.

What did he want of her anyway? All week she had barely even seen him, since he was constantly away and, even when he were there, she avoided him like the plague, coming up with any cheap excuse she could think of. He didn't try to be near her. Once in a while, he would knock on her door to tell her to come eat or call her for their ridiculous lessons. She refused to answer him in any case. Why stay alive, so he could keep her locked up and play her this music that slipped into the deepest cracks of her mind, giving her the most berserk ideas? And what was the point of her lessons? She couldn't even go to the store, even with him along, there was no way he would let her sing in front of an audience ever again.

It took her seven days, four hours and forty-five minutes to realise her role in the house by the lake. She was a woman, trapped in the house of a man who loved her sickly, obsessively, who projected onto her all his hopes mankind had crushed. But if she gave him what he surely wanted, what every man in love wants, then perhaps, he would let her go. The possibility of hooking onto her even more was greater, but she was willing to risk everything for that tiny 1%.

She wondered if she wanted this. Surely, she had once longed for this, imagined those magic fingers finally running across her skin. But now? Could she give herself away passively and mechanically to a monster? It was her only alternative.

And so, sober, apathetic, she did what had to be done. She meticylously washed, shaved, wore the perfume he had bought for her. She wore the most provocative of the expensive dresses, teased her hair and waited, like a sheep in the slaughterhouse. After thirty-two minutes and twelve seconds had passed, the beast knocked on her door.

"I'm coming," she spoke clearly, even if her eyes were puffy from the tears. She cleaned herself and set foot, for the first time in a long week, into the parlor of her prison.

The first glimpse she caught of him was from the back. He was hunched over the piano, scribbling in empty sheet music papers his odd music. She took a step closer, but he continued to ignore her. He only muttered nonsense to himself and kept on writing calmly, as if nothing was amiss. As if he didn't have a girl locked in an underground house.

How could she hate him? This man, however ruined, poured all his care and affection on her. He literally lifted her by the shoulders and forced her to do something good for herself. And now, she was standing half-naked like a desperate whore behind him and observed him. He was skeletal to a macabre degree, yet what insignificant volume his body had comprised solely of bones and muscles, impressivelt strong in relation to his weary look. He was usually dressed to the nines, but now he had let his guard down, staying in his crist white buttondown, which probably cost more than her rent, and hiis thick black hair was rustled.

"Are you going to stand there for long?" His voice was otherworldly, horrifying, with no relation to the angel she had come to know.

"We need to talk."

He finally turned to look at her with a weary look, which was replaced by surprise the moment he saw her. His golden eyes scanned her hungrily, before lowering, full of shame, on the floor.

"I want to see you when I talk to you," she said, barely keeping her voice cold.

"Very well," he muttered obidiently and stoof in front of her. "So?"

She had forgotten how terrifyingly enormous he was and hesitated for a moment. Sweaping back her rustled mane and stretching her chest towards him, she took a deep breath and to speak the phrase that had been burning her mind for days.

"I'll sleep with you."

Had she not witnessed it, she wouldn't believe a man could react in such a way to mere words. In seconds, he had reached the other side of the room, wrinkled in a corner like a beaten dog, looking at her as if she were a phantom.

"What?" Something animalistic growled inside him. "What are you saying?"

Walking slowly, methodically, she camee to stand in front of him once again. "That's why I'm here, isn't it? Since you're not asking, I'm offering it to you."

Suddenly she was dizzy, felt her head circle ten times around her neck. Her cheek burned from the hardest slap she had ever gotten.

"This!" He screeched like a demon and fought to get away from her. "This is what you understood, you stupid girl?!"

"But..." she whimpered pathetically, stretching out her arm to reach him. He jumped from her touch, as if from electricity.

"But what?" He screamed. "Had I wanted to rape you, I hade many chances to do so!"

He was stuffed into the corner now, holding his hands and wailing.

"You think...you think...that's why you're here...that...that you're nothing more...to me...than...than flesh?"

He turned to look at her, eyes shooting fiery daggers. "Never would I...never...could I touch you...I'm not...I'm not such a monster..."

Having nothing better to do, she kneeled in front of him and he trembled at their proximity. "So, you don't want this, then?"

His breaths were heavy now. "Yes, it's true. I'm a man, my sweet, not a saint. But I love you, Christine...as I've never loved a woman...I would never put you through such torment...Here...here is your home, my love...there's no safer place in the world for you..."

Ashamed, she curled on the floor, trying to cover her nudity. He stood in front of her, straightened his shirt, pulled his hair back.

"Go get dressed," he ordered in a raspy voice and she ran in her room, to hide from his eyes, his scorn, thanking all that is sacred for protecting her.

Behind the wooden door, an otherworldly growl was heard, a cry of immense pain, as something heavy and glass was shattered with rage. That night, she cried herself to sleep. That night, he drugged himself to oblivion.


End file.
